Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Christopher Chope in the Chair]

Schedule 1

The Commission

Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 66, in schedule 1, page 46, line 36, at end insert—
‘(3) The Commission is to be responsible for ensuring that appropriate staffing levels are maintained in order for it to fulfil its functions as determined in section 2 of this Act.’.—[Paul Rowen.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

James Plaskitt: I have, of course, had time to reflect at length on the contributions made on the amendment, but have not altered my conclusions. The contributions of the hon. Members for South-West Bedfordshire, for Rochdale and for Angus had one thing in common. There is a bit of a misunderstanding on their part about the chronology in relation to staff numbers in the agency. Let me try to clear that up for them. As they know, there is an operational target set by the Department on staffing numbers, which envisages a 15 per cent. reduction and is designed to take the head count to 9,547 by March 2008. That date is very important because, as I understood it, all hon. Members who concentrated on the staffing reduction seemed to associate it with the introduction of CMEC. However, as they will see, CMEC picking up the reins and assuming responsibility for the way that child support evolves will take place largely after 2008. It is very important to understand that point, but I will say a little more about the reduction in staffing levels.
It is important to understand that the head count that we are aiming to achieve by March 2008 takes the operational numbers, by and large, back down to their level before the operational improvement plan. That point is also important in getting the numbers in context.
The operational improvement plan, which is now only one year into its operation, is a concerted attempt to get to grips with some of the historic operational issues in the CSA. On the basis of its first year, the plan it is making very good progress and we are therefore pretty confident that the tough targets that we set will be achieved.
Many of the targets are concerned with systemic reform. Once they are achieved and the historic legacy problems ironed out, the agency should be able to continue operating at that much improved level without the additional staff that were necessary to correct the long-standing problems. The large backlog of unclear cases is now coming down, there is faster treatment of new applications and telephony is much improved.
I hope that hon. Members understand that the head count numbers that they have been focusing on lead up to March 2008 and have more to do with delivering the operational improvement plan than setting staffing levels in some predictive way for the forthcoming commission. I will expand a bit more on that later.

Andrew Selous: I was particularly interested in the Minister’s brief reference to the operational improvement plan because, according to my information, in July 2006 the agency was collecting 35 per cent. of arrears and that was down to 33 per cent. in September. I do not know if he has more up-to-date information, but I am nervous about the progress of the operational improvement plan.

James Plaskitt: Many indicators apply to the operational improvement plan and I am not asserting, just one year into it, that every single one is now moving in the correct direction. The key priorities in the first year of the plan are resolving what are known as stuck cases, on which progress is being made; beginning a substantial reduction in the backlog of uncleared cases, and those are down substantially; and getting more maintenance payments flowing through. From memory, I think that I am right in saying that in the first year of the plan, about 58,000 more children are in receipt of maintenance than before we embarked on it. Those are very promising indicators of the plan’s success. There is, of course, much more to be done with two years of the plan to go.

Paul Rowen: I was listening very carefully to what the Minister had to say. Given that the amendment would give the commission the right to set the appropriate staffing level, perhaps he could tell us what he estimates is an adequate staffing level. Is that based on the anticipated reduction in case load as a result of the move to the voluntary payments? We have concerns about how quickly those voluntary payments, rather than the statutory scheme, will become the norm.

James Plaskitt: The appropriate level of staffing for the commission will be down to the commission. That is not just a neat formulation. I shall say more about that in a moment. Of course the appropriate level will depend on choices that the commission makes about how it wants to deliver these services. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have published indicative figures of what we expect the impact on case load to be. That will emerge as we proceed and as the reforms come into play. The commission, charged as it is with certain duties, will need to assess the appropriate staffing level to deliver on the commitments that the Bill will give it. I trust that deals with the hon. Gentleman’s point.
I also want to pick up the operational suggestions made by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. I was concerned about the model she proposed and I am not at all convinced of its workability. As I understood it she wanted an individual caseworker assigned to each case. I think that she will accept, on reflection, that that is not achievable or realistic. Each case does not require constant attention. They require spasmodic attention. Therefore, any individual caseworker will be handling any number of cases. We do not know when an individual call will come asking the agency to deal with a case.
We want clients of the agency to be able to call at times that are appropriate to them, which may be outside normal working hours. One cannot assume that one given caseworker will sit waiting for the phone to ring in case there is a call on that particular case. A number of people will inevitably need to be able to handle any customer query or issue coming in. The secret is to have a good back-up system which ensures that any single operator dealing with a call coming in to the agency can get in front of them in a timely fashion all the relevant information about a client’s case. That is the work and investment that is now being made in the IT system.

Nadine Dorries: This is a question of accountability and individual clients knowing who is responsible for their case and whom they can approach. There are instances when my constituents’ cases require a certain level of input over a short period, and for them to be handed from one person to the other every time they ring the call centre is unsatisfactory. Should not there be one member of staff who takes overall responsibility for a particular case while that case is ongoing, accepting that every time clients phone they would not always speak to that person?

James Plaskitt: I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from, but I do not think that that is operationally possible. It would be unhelpful to a client of the agency to be told that the named individual inside the agency handling their case was Ms A, for example, because there would inevitably be occasions when they rang up to speak to Ms A and were told that she was handling someone else’s case, was not in today and so on. It would create a false impression of what we were able to do.
In my experience as a constituency MP—I suspect this is backed up by other members of the Committee—constituents are not so concerned about having one named individual. Their primary concern is that whenever they make any contact with the agency their point is dealt with effectively and efficiently by whomever takes that call. That is the key to a seamless and continuous service to clients. It is not where the agency has got to at the moment, as we know. That is why the current investment in the IT is so important.

Michael Weir: I understand what the Minister is saying and I appreciate the operational difficulties, but is it not the case at present that if I take up the case of a constituent and get a response from the CSA it will give a named person to be passed on to the constituent, who can then contact that person directly? Thus, the agency has the facility to do that in some cases, when it has got to the complaint stage, but it would seem sensible to bring that process forward, in order to avoid it getting to that stage.

James Plaskitt: The complaints procedure is not the same as the day-to-day administration process, which is why the two are not transferable. I am anxious to make progress on the matter, because I fear that we are straying a little from the amendment.

Andrew Selous: I put to the Minister the same point that I put to the hon. Member for Rochdale this morning. It is that many of the fears expressed by members of the Committee would be allayed if the Minister could assure us that a fairly detailed record of what has happened will appear on the CMEC operator’s computer screen. That would allow an operator who may be fresh to the case to see what has happened during the last few calls—what stage the case has reached—and to pick it up quickly and deal with it. Our constituents are frustrated by having to explain the whole case from the beginning every time.

James Plaskitt: That is what I am saying. That is the ideal operative state. It is not yet the state that the agency has reached. Many cases are still proceeding clerically and are still paper-bound. It is a huge job for the agency to move from its current state to being able to offer that kind of service. The purpose of the operational improvement plan is to fix some of the agency’s inherited problems and to get the process into a fitter state before CMEC assumes responsibility for it. I hope that hon. Members are assured that the specific provision in the amendment is not necessary.
Clause 2 sets clear objectives for the commission, and it must aim to meet them when exercising its functions. It also has a duty to act in a way that is both efficient and effective. That places a requirement on the commission, working within its allocated funding, to ensure that it has the capability to deliver, which includes having an appropriate level of staffing. If the commission did not do that, it would be failing to meet the legislative requirements placed upon it; it would be failing to act and failing to pursue its objectives. The appropriate level of staffing will depend on the operating model and a series of other decisions still to be made by the commission.
For example, if the commission contracts out a significant proportion of its services, as the Bill enables it to do, the number of direct employees will be fewer than if it chooses to keep a substantial number of services in-house. However, the choice of operating model is a matter for the commission—and, therefore, so is the level of staffing. The concern that the amendment seeks to address is already provided for in the Bill. For that reason, I urge the hon. Member for Rochdale to withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen: We have had a useful discussion on the issue. I am sure that we will return to it after CMEC becomes operational. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Paul Rowen: I beg to move amendment No. 59, in schedule 1, page 48, line 28, at end insert—
‘(c) examine the perfomance of the Commission in relation to historic debt.’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 40, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(e) information concerning the historic debt to be collected by the commission, including
(i) the total amount of historic debt;
(ii) the numbers of individual debtors and individual amounts owed expressed as a proportion within different bands of debt levels;
(iii) the steps taken to recover that debt, including the budget and staffing resources devoted to this activity; and
(iv) the amount of debt considered uncollectable, broken down by the reasons why.’.
No. 12, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(e) information concerning the historic debt to be collected by the Commission, including—
(i) the total amount of historic debt;
(ii) the numbers of individual debtors;
(iii) the amounts of debt owed, broken down by bands;
(iv) the steps taken to recover that debt, including the budget and staffing resources devoted to this activity; and
(v) the amount of debt considered uncollectable, broken down by the reasons why.’.

Paul Rowen: In the latter part of an earlier speech, the Minister touched on some of the CSA’s current problems with regard to historic debt. The amendments seek to ensure that proper arrangements are in place to deal with that issue when CMEC becomes operational.
The first amendment would ensure that the auditor general of the National Audit Office included the matter of historic debt in that body’s report to Parliament, when CMEC’s accounts are discussed. That is important because the debts are substantial. We need to ensure that they are taken into account, given that a different model was suggested in the Henshaw report, whereby CMEC would not deal with historic debt.
The second amendment adds the matter of historic debt to the remit of the annual report that the commission must present to the Secretary of State. Again, it is important that a regular report is made to the Secretary of State and to Parliament, through the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, to ensure that we know what has happened in that regard, given the size of the debt. We want to ensure that the historic debt functions of CMEC are mentioned explicitly in the Bill, and that accountability for the historic debt is established. That is important because we do not want historic debt to be overshadowed by the introduction of the new assessments process and the so-called clean break. New arrangements do need to be put in place, but there must be increased concentration on ensuring that the historic debt, which affects a substantial number of children, is not forgotten or washed away.
A generation of children is growing up—some of them have already grown up—without the maintenance that they are owed, because the CSA failed to take into account proper debt collection and enforcement. I submit that that is a contributory factor to the high level of child poverty in this country. We need to understand the nature of the debt and how much of it can and should be collected. In setting up CMEC, we must work to ensure that that money will be collected.
The CSA annual report 2006 refers to at least £1 billion of child support money that the CSA regards as collectable. I hope that when the new enforcement powers in the Bill are introduced in 2008, the debt recovery target—currently £213 million by March 2009—will be reconsidered. It will be intolerable if it is not made a priority to recover that £1 billion, which should be being used to give children the start in life that they deserve by enabling them to be looked after. We seek, through the amendment, to ensure that the target is even higher than £213 million. I hope that the Minister will give us an indication as to what he believes will be collected, given the substantial new powers in the Bill.
I accept that only a small percentage of the historic debt has been written off, which we welcome. However, we are concerned that the real reason for that is that the collection of large sums of money has been quietly dropped, because it is too difficult or too expensive to pursue. In England and Wales, for example, debts of £760 million are currently not being pursued, because they are more than six years old and therefore cannot be subject to a liability order in the courts. We need to know what CMEC will do to ensure that more of the money is collected.
If the commission decides not to take action to recover the debt, the parent with care needs to be told that the debt is going to be written off. At the moment, many constituents who come to us about the fact that the CSA is not bothering to recover debt have not been told. If a decision is taken that a debt will not be collected because it is too difficult, we would like the parent with care to be informed. More than that, if it can be proved that it is the fault of the CSA or CMEC that the debt has not been pursued, some form of compensation should be paid to the parent with care to ensure that account is taken of that non-recovery. In the evidence-taking session on Tuesday, we heard what people had to say about the level of child poverty and why it is important that the money should be paid. If there is to be a write-off, it should come with compensation paid by CMEC.
The debt recovery problems that the CSA has encountered are listed in the 2006 NAO report on the agency: inability to list all non-resident parents who have accrued debt either in the CSCS, the original computer system, or CS2, the new one; inability to mark as high-risk those cases with a history of high enforcement action; inability of CSA accounting systems to identify the debtors with the largest debts or the most persistent offenders; and the fact that the CSA’s enforcement directorate dealt with only 19,000 of the 247,000 cases of non-compliance or partial compliance in the UK, which is only 7 per cent. of the total.
Although I welcome a new start and a new organisation with tougher enforcement powers, we want a commitment that those enforcement powers will be used to ensure that the children who have been left behind and have not had the start in life that they were guaranteed get what they deserve. Considering the CSA’s powers, if debt is written off, it is CMEC’s responsibility to pay compensation.

Andrew Selous: There is very little in the comments of the hon. Member for Rochdale—indeed, nothing at all—with which I disagree. There is huge concern about debt among the groups watching from the outside as we set up CMEC. There is also concern, although I hope that it is ill-placed, that the Government might seek to move on from historic debt and focus just on obtaining accurate maintenance week by week—after all, that is the specific objective of clause 2—without dealing properly with historic debt. It is vital that we guard against that.
One Parent Families’ brief to all Committee members says that the group is extremely concerned about the inherited historic debt and feels that the Bill does not give the issue the attention that it deserves. The group is right to say so. My information, as I said in my earlier intervention on the Minister, is that the situation is worsening as we speak and that debt is growing by £20 million a month, while the agency is managing to bring in only some £7 million. The total debt is increasing as we speak by £14 million net a month. If he can give us more up-to-date figures, I look forward to receiving them. In July 2006, 35 per cent. of arrears were being collected, and that percentage decreased in December to 33 per cent. Again, if there is a more up-to-date figure—I do not suppose that the July 2007 figures are available yet—and the Minister can reassure us, I should be grateful.
The hon. Member for Rochdale has cited the NAO’s excellent report of 30 June 2006, “Child Support Agency: Implementation of the Child Support Reforms”. I shall not repeat everything he said, but it is a thorough document. It is alarming to read the relevant information in detail. On pages 64 and 65, we learn that there is
“no facility to identify that previous enforcement action has been taken and that the case may initially represent a higher risk of non-compliance.”
We do not know whether individual cases have involved debt. We have been told that debt accumulates not only after the liability has been given, but while assessments are calculated. There is currently no facility to identify the largest debtors or the most persistent offenders, and—this is something that we might come on to later—64 per cent. of cases where a liability order was sought were inaccurate.
Very serious concerns have been raised on the issue of debt. Why is it so important to have a really full and accurate report on debt in the annual report to the Secretary of State in clause 9, which is the subject of amendment No. 12? There are a number of reasons. Failure to collect debt is fundamentally unfair to those who pay. It obviously robs children and parents with care of money that is rightfully theirs, and it brings the credibility of the agency into disrepute. Good debt collection, on the other hand, gets the money through to the children who need it, and sends a very powerful deterrent message to those thinking of skipping their responsibilities to their children. I have always said to parents with care who have come to see my in my constituency surgeries: “Don’t worry. That debt will not be washed away. It is a lifetime liability, and is there. The Department will do all that it can to get it back for you.” I want to be able to go on saying that to my constituents with a fair degree of reassurance.
I end briefly with a constituency story. A lady came to see me, whom I took to see the Minister himself in days gone by such was the difficulty of her case. She was owed about £40,000—a considerable sum. She told me that because maintenance had not been paid week by week, she had had to raid a small legacy left by her mother for her children in order to buy shoes for her children for the start of the school term. That is an individual example of the sort of thing that we are talking about when the money is not paid. As the hon. Member for Rochdale and I have said, a generation of children has gone through childhood without that money. That money needs to be collected to give those children a chance, perhaps in their 20s or 30s, to get something back that they did not have when they were younger. There are real concerns, and we definitely want to see information as a requirement of the Bill in clause 9.

James Plaskitt: There is, of course, no denying that the situation in respect of debt is one of the big issues and problems within the agency. It is important to be aware that the debt that has accumulated within the agency began to do so from day one, at the absolute start of its operation way back in the 1990s, and it has continued to grow pretty much remorselessly throughout the life of the existing agency.
I do not want to get away from the fact that before we berate the agency for its shortcomings and its performance on debt, ultimately, the debt has arisen because of the lack of co-operation of non-resident parents, who simply have not faced up to their responsibility. We are asking the agency, and its successor bodies, to do a difficult job, in going after non-resident parents, some of whom will go to the most extraordinary lengths to evade their responsibilities. That is ultimately where the fault of the situation lies. Having said that, of course the agency needs to perform better in its efforts to collect debt, and we must ensure that when CMEC comes into operation, it will have all the right powers at its disposal to continue the essential task of going after the debt that is owed. Primarily, we want to see the debt chased that is owed to parents with care, but a chunk of it is owed to the taxpayer and the Secretary of State.
Far from being overlooked, the issue of debt is very important to us, and I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Rochdale and that of the Committee to the initiatives that we have taken in respect of improving debt recovery within the context of the operational improvement plan. It is early days, as I have said about other aspects of the plan, but there are already some promising signs.
We have introduced new powers and recruited the assistance of private debt collection agencies to go after some of the debt that was proving difficult for the agency to collect. They have only just begun that work but have already pulled in £3 million of outstanding debt. Interestingly, merely sending letters to some non-resident parents, informing them that we were about to pass their debt to a private collection agency, produced £1 million in payments immediately, which was a promising start.
We have also recently introduced a new power enabling staff of the agency to collect debt payments over the phone. While they are in conversation with a non-resident parent who is non-compliant, they can put the debt payment on the parent’s debit or credit card. That is an important facility. The change was quite simple but has proved extremely effective. It has only just come in, but £7.5 million has already been collected by that method. Things are already happening to help us go after the debt.
The commission of course will have a range of new powers to pursue debt and manage it more effectively. It will acquire powers to negotiate debt settlements, which in some cases are the quickest and most effective way of resolving outstanding debt problems, on the understanding that they will be accepted only with the consent of the non-resident parent. The commission will also acquire powers to recover arrears from the estates of deceased non-resident parents.

Andrew Selous: The Minister may have meant that debt settlements will be accepted only with the permission of the parent with care, not that of the non-resident parent.

James Plaskitt: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his correction. The commission will also acquire the power to sell debt should it wish to do so.
The hon. Gentleman was right to stress the importance of pursuing historic debt and the message that it sends to non-resident parents who are not compliant or considering not complying. He is also right that the commission will need to be able to demonstrate that it is doing the best possible job of chasing debt. The only point of disagreement is whether that requirement needs to be placed in the Bill, as he suggests. I argue that the responsibility on CMEC to demonstrate what it is doing in respect of debt is an adequate provision.
The amendment, although understandable given the legacy of the Child Support Agency, is not necessary because the Bill already provides for examination of the commission’s performance on debt. Clause 9 requires the commission to report on its performance across all its business activities, including action taken on historic debt. It also specifically requires the commission to report on its performance in exercising its functions “effectively and efficiently”. That, too, includes its performance on historic debt.
That is all supported by schedule 1, which requires the commission to have a committee of non-executive board members, which must act as an audit committee. That will ensure that the commission’s financial controls are of a sufficiently high standard. Furthermore, as an Executive non-departmental public body, the commission must have its annual accounts audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who in turn has a statutory responsibility to report the results of that audit to Parliament. The accounting and disclosure requirements of the annual report and details on accounts for Executive non-departmental bodies are set out in detail in the financial reporting manual published by the Treasury.
As I have outlined, the Bill provides a comprehensive framework for reporting on the commission’s performance in the all-important area of debt, so I urge the hon. Member for Rochdale to withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen: I have listened to the Minister, and this has been an important debate. As he rightly said, historic debt is of interest and concern to many people. I am reassured by what he says about the reporting requirement not going away, and I believe that many hon. Members will ensure that it does not. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous: There is a point that I should like to clarify. Am I able to press amendment No. 12 to a Division?

Christopher Chope: We shall be able to call a Division when we reach the appropriate moment, now that notice has been given.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

Objectives of the Commission

Paul Rowen: I beg to move amendment No. 24, in clause 2, page 1, line 8, leave out ‘objective is’ and insert ‘objectives are’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 25, in clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
‘and to secure the payment of any arrears of child support maintenance including sums owed pursuant to the Child Support Act 1991 prior to the establishment of the Commission.’.
No. 72, in clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
‘, and to support these parents’ joint responsibility to ensure financial support and, whenever possible, emotional support, having regard to the welfare of the children affected by these arrangements.’.
No. 56, in clause 2, page 1, line 11, leave out ‘objective is’ and insert ‘objectives are’.
No. 78, in clause 2, page 1, line 14, leave out ‘appropriate’.
No. 2, in clause 2, page 1, line 16, leave out ‘and’ and insert ‘;’.
No. 3, in clause 2, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
‘and to secure payment of arrears owed pursuant to that Act’.
No. 27, in clause 2, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
‘; and to collect debts owed pursuant to that Act’.
No. 85, in clause 2, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
‘(2A) In the application of the subsidiary objectives set out in subsection (2) above, the Commission must have regard to the choices expressed by the parent with care and the non-resident parent.’.
No. 29, in clause 2, page 1, line 19, at end add—
‘(4) In pursuing and having regard to its objectives, and in the exercise of its functions, the Commission shall have regard to the welfare of any children likely to be affected.’.

Paul Rowen: Once more, there are a number of important points in this string of amendments that both my party and the Conservative Front Benchers wish to pursue. The first picks up on the same point that we were debating just now—the issue of historic debt and what to do about it. I remind the Minister of the evidence on the historic debt position that was given by Janet Allbeson on Tuesday. She said that it would be a tough job to collect it, because a lot of historic debt is pretty flaky. As well as processing new applications, one of the huge exercises that the transition will entail will be bringing historic debt cases up to date before a case is transferred. That will involve a lot of extra work. It gives some indication of the tasks that the commission will face in development.
Although we have already debated historic debt, I want to focus on amendment No. 29. With your permission, Mr. Chope, I should like to press it to a vote. Its purpose is one that was referred to in the evidence on Tuesday. It would ensure that the commission would have regard to the welfare of any children who are likely to be affected by its decisions. Much of our debate has been about the effect of the CSA’s failure to collect maintenance payments on a generation of children. Given that we are making a new start, it is vital that the Bill explicitly includes a commitment to ensuring that non-resident parents pay their whack, so that child poverty is tackled. Things should not continue to be as they were in the past, which rather obscured some of the work of the CSA in reducing public expenditure claims.
I know that the Bill’s provisions will help to reduce child poverty. However, we need to make it clear that that objective is something that we wish to pursue, and that we seek to recognise the clear relationship between child poverty and maintenance. The figures in the Harker report show that 42 per cent. of children in poverty are children who live in lone-parent families. Only 32 per cent. of lone parents receive child maintenance. The Government have so far missed their target of halving child poverty.

Stephen Hesford: The hon. Gentleman is speaking chiefly to amendment No. 29 and is banging on about child poverty. That amendment does not mention child poverty, and I do not understand why. If the amendment is to achieve what he wants, why does it not mention child poverty?

Paul Rowen: I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, but the amendment states that
“the Commission shall have regard to the welfare of any children.”
Most hon. Members will accept that child poverty has been one of the key factors affecting the welfare of many of the children concerned, and that is a direct result of the CSA’s failure to ensure that maintenance payments are made. One can say that the causes are wider, but child poverty is clearly an issue and we need to deal with it. The Government have already missed their target of halving child poverty by 2010, and the most recent report on households below average income revealed once again that the number of children living in poverty has increased in the past 12 months.

Stephen Hesford: The hon. Gentleman said that the Government have missed their target for halving child poverty by 2010, but by my reckoning we are still in 2007.

Paul Rowen: Yes, but as I explained, even if incremental moves are made towards a target for the future, I do not expect that there will be a sudden decrease in child poverty in the next three years, unless something dramatic happens and the Prime Minister suddenly announces a huge increase in expenditure for that. The fact is that the number of children living in poverty has increased in the past 12 months, so rather than moving forward on that, the Government are moving backwards, and that is an important point. It is important that we are clear about what some of CMEC’s key objectives are, and that dealing with the welfare of the child, in this case by ensuring that maintenance is paid, is its prime purpose and should be on the face of the Bill.

Andrew Selous: This is a large group of amendments that covers a range of issues, so I think that we are going to have a wide-ranging debate. The debate that we just had focused on debt, and I agree with the hon. Member for Rochdale that that is significant.
In brief response to what the Minister said, I have just looked through clause 9 and cannot see the word debt in it, and, of course, it does not appear within clause 2. I cling to the view that, when push comes to shove, what is on the face of the Bill will dictate the priorities, aims and objectives of a Government agency or non-departmental public body, and that will be the case with CMEC. Those things matter. I heard the Minister’s reassurances on debt, but I would be more reassured if I could see those in plain ink in the Bill.
Amendment No. 72 harks back to a line of questioning that I adopted with the Minister and Lord McKenzie of Luton—a close neighbour of mine in Bedfordshire, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire—in our first evidence session. You probably would not allow me to repeat all of that, Mr. Chope, but I shall give a brief summary, because we are starting a new organisation and I was heartened by Lord McKenzie’s response. He concluded:
“It is certainly something that we are aiming to design into the service.”——[Official Report, Child Maintenance and Other Payments Public Bill Committee, 17 July 2007; c. 16.]
I was genuinely pleased to hear the Minister’s colleague in the other place say that. However, I cling to the view that unless there is a core, operational shift in the CSA’s culture in respect of how it will treat separated families in the round, CMEC will not achieve the financial objectives that we want it to achieve. There is a human side to what it does; it is not just a matter of a mechanical, financial calculation.
I will mention Australia again, as I went there in the last Parliament with the Select Committee. I sat down with some of the operatives in the organisation there, saw the computer system and talked to the senior staff. For a number of years, that organisation has provided practical support to separated parents, because it has the clear, simple view that where such support is safe and appropriate—those are vital safeguards—that approach makes sense and improves the overall welfare of children. It also helps to ensure that the money gets through week by week, which is, rightly, the Bill’s central objective.
I do not understand why there is nothing in the Bill about emotional support as well as financial support, because that would help distance parenting to happen in a practical way and help to achieve the culture change that we keep talking about. I was very struck in our second sitting by the comment of Janet Allbeson of One Parent Families, who said:
“Well, lone parents have said to us: ‘We want more contact. Why does he not get more involved?’ There is a sort of consensus that, if non-resident parents can be more involved—providing it is safe, of course—it has very good outcomes for children.”——[Official Report, Child Maintenance and Other Payments Public Bill Committee, 17 July 2007; c. 67.]
The hon. Member for Wirral, West chided the hon. Member for Rochdale about the phrase “welfare of children” when we discussed an earlier amendment, but I think that that is a good phrase. There can be poverty of emotional support and in the lack of time that parents give to one-to-one investment in their children, which can be every bit as damaging as the lack of money provided week by week. I will not say any more on that subject, as this is a rerun of a line of questioning that was pursued in an earlier sitting.
I will not press amendment No. 78 to a Division, and I definitely do not want to leave out the word “appropriate”—it is absolutely vital and should be in the Bill— but tabling the amendment was the only way in which I could secure a debate on the subject. I hope that opprobrium will not rain down upon me from the Chair or the Clerk. I want to tease out from the Minister what he means by “appropriate”.
We all agree that “appropriate” voluntary maintenance arrangements are what we want, but it would be useful if the Minister were to say what he means. Will a template with the CMEC percentages be given to couples when they make their private, voluntary arrangements? And will it give guidance on what is appropriate or say that anything that falls below an indicated level is not appropriate?

Tim Boswell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the words “and function” also need to be added in order to provide greater clarity? The words need to be appropriate for the circumstances, and ones that will stick.

Andrew Selous: I agree. My hon. Friend heralds a debate that we shall have slightly later this afternoon about the stickability of private voluntary arrangements. It is an absolutely key point, and it is still up in the air in our deliberations. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the use of “appropriate”. I do not intend to press amendment No. 78 to a Division; I wanted merely to have the debate and to press the Minister on the matter.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 relate to debt. I shall not explain at length why historic debt is so important, given our general debate on the importance of dealing with debt, the signals that it sends when it is not dealt with and the good signals that it sends when it is dealt with. I cling to the notion that, if something is really important, it should be in the Bill.
The Bill is not massively long, but it is not short, too—we have 78 pages before us. Clause 2 on the objectives of the commission is the key clause in the Bill. When the pressure is really on, the members of the board of CMEC will look at what Parliament has passed and, if the words
“to secure payment of arrears owed pursuant to that Act”
are not in the clause, the Bill will not receive the priority that it should. I accept the Minister’s intentions that the staff will be told to act in that way, but I would be more reassured if the amendment were accepted.

Michael Weir: I had not intended to speak on this group of amendments, but I have some worries about amendment No. 72, which the hon. Gentleman has explained. The amendment goes to the heart of CMEC, and whether CMEC can be both an adviser and an enforcer is something that we took up in our evidence session. I agree with much of what he said about the need for advice and support for children outwith finance, but it worries me to link the two so closely.

Andrew Selous: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. If he has had a chance to look through the later amendments, he will see that they reword some clauses in respect of the advice given in clause 5. My amendments say not that the commission must provide the advice, but that the advice must be provided—I have turned it from active to passive. I recognise the issues that the hon. Gentleman is rightly raising about whether CMEC would be the right body to take such action. All I am saying is that such important action needs to be taken, but not necessarily by CMEC.

Michael Weir: I accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument and agree with him. Before entering the House, I was a solicitor. I dealt with family law and, even for a solicitor, it is one of the most difficult areas of law with which to be involved. In Scots law—I am sure that this is the case in England—finance and other issues are kept deliberately apart. All too often, a man would say, “I’m paying for them, so I want to have contact with them,” whether or not he had any real interest in having contact with the children. He might suddenly want contact years after the divorce or separation, when he had finally been caught by the CSA. That is not necessarily in the best interests of the children.
Alternatively, the woman might say, “Well, he is not paying for them so I shall not let him have contact.” Again, that is wrong, because the child often needs contact with the parent. We must keep such matters apart. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: if there is a proposal for a separate organisation to give advice and assistance in other areas, I am happy to support it, but CMEC is not the way to do it. I asked that question in the evidence-taking session with Janet Allbeson.
I am concerned about how CMEC can advise both parties in a break-up, because there is an inherent conflict of interest. Whether or not the parent with care needs advice on their rights or what they should be going for, the non-resident parent also needs advice, but that is not covered properly here.

Andrew Selous: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there should not be linkage between maintenance and contact. Some people have called for that, but I am absolutely not calling for it, because the issues are separate. Contact is rightly dealt with by the courts, and I do not want to link the two things. If the hon. Gentleman goes to the front page of the Australian CSA website, he will see that what I am talking about is right at the heart of what the Australian CSA does as part of an Australian Government Department. That site contains signposted information, support and advice that is not part of the legal system. People can ignore that if they want to, and it is not forced on anyone. So there is a model of a CSA that has a much better reputation than ours and it gives that information. We should be looking at that.

Michael Weir: I do not think that we deeply disagree about that, but I wanted to make that point.
Briefly, on amendment No. 78 and the use of “appropriate” in relation to minutes of agreement, I am also concerned that—as I understood it as we took evidence—it was anticipated that allowing couples to enter into a minute of agreement would allow a situation to be addressed where, for example, one party would make over the house or some other assets in lieu of regular child maintenance. Just having a template and putting in the appropriate percentage would undermine that, so we have to be careful. I appreciate that the detail is not here, because we do not have the regulations, but will the regulations specify an appropriate allowance to allow that sort of thing to be done, so that there will not be, as has often been the case with the CSA, a capital assessment and a capital agreement, perhaps in lieu of child maintenance, that may subsequently be overturned? That has caused a great many problems within couples.

James Plaskitt: We have had an interesting debate on a lengthy group of amendments.
I shall begin with amendment No. 29, tabled by the hon. Member for Rochdale, who wants us to incorporate a new subsection (4) in clause 2. Everything that he seeks to achieve—I understand why he wants to do it—is wholly covered by clause 1, which could not state more clearly the commission’s overriding objective, namely to maximise the number of children for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place. Surely, that is at the heart of supporting children’s welfare and addressing the challenge of further reducing child poverty. The hon. Gentleman’s proposal only elaborates on something that was already adequately contained in the clause as drafted, and I am therefore not convinced that it is necessary.
I turn now to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire, who is a great fan of the Australian system because he keeps citing it. However, that system is unpopular with the Australian public. I do not think that, in that sense, it claims any greater virtue than our equally troubled CSA. He will know that, partly as a result of its unpopularity, it, too, is undergoing massive reform with a view to the introduction of a new child support system in Australia—funnily enough in 2008.

Andrew Selous: I think that the Minister will agree that, as we heard from Professor Wikeley on Monday afternoon, although it is unpopular—I wonder whether there is a popular child support agency anywhere in the world—it is pretty effective and gets quite high scores for operational effectiveness.

James Plaskitt: Well, his view was academic.
On the points that the hon. Gentleman made about the Australian system, I am aware that the information sheets to which he has referred are available on its website—it is possible to download them, although I could not do it. However, I know what the sheets say: they provide introductory information about the issues that they cover—I agree that they cover a copious range of related issues—and then move on to signpost people towards family relationship centres, which are not part of the Australian agency.
The hon. Gentleman seeks to load additional areas of responsibility on to CMEC. That concerns me because we are trying to set up an effective working child maintenance system, and we know from past experience that that is a difficult thing to achieve. I am reluctant to load additional functions on to the organisation when we know that its existing core function is already difficult. It is not as though the Government are not trying to do some of the things mentioned in the papers drawn from the Australian CSA’s website, with which the hon. Gentleman is familiar. We are seeking to provide exactly that support to families who are going through difficult times. However, such work is not being done by the agency or by the Department for Work and Pensions, but by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. What the hon. Gentleman wants to happen will come about in any event.

Andrew Selous: I continue to urge the Minister to see that line of argument not as imposing an extra burden on CMEC, but as something that will be fundamental in helping it to achieve its objectives in the Bill. I am relaxed about who provides that and how it works cross-departmentally. I want it to be made available and out there for people to use.

James Plaskitt: That is the point I am trying to make. If the hon. Gentleman studies the proposals that are being worked on by colleagues in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, he will see the emergence of the kind of support he wants. It is a cross-Government strategy on family policy. It will cover services that support families directly and those that deal with family dysfunction and family breakdown. The aim of the strategy is to ensure that policy across Government is consistent and works in children’s best interests. What the hon. Gentleman seeks is there, but is it set out differently from the Australian measure.
Amendments Nos. 24, 25, 56 and 72 collectively propose two additions to the main objective. The first requires conditions of support for parents who meet their financial and emotional responsibilities, and has regard, too, for the welfare of children. The second, which we touched on in a previous debate, requires the commission to secure the payment of any arrears.
The Bill already requires the commission to support parents who meet their financial obligations. The existing objective is to maximise the number of effective arrangements. Those are arrangements that are working, where money is flowing and in which parents meet their financial responsibilities. To pursue that objective, clause 5 places a requirement on the commission to provide parents with the information and support that they need to put such arrangements in place.
The issues of emotional support and the welfare of the child are less straightforward, but the legislation will require the commission, like the agency before it, to have regard to the welfare of the child when taking discretionary decisions within the statutory maintenance system. However, we do not want to impose a general requirement on the commission to take account of the overall welfare of the child, or to support parents in providing both financial and emotional support. The commission’s primary objective and role is to ensure that effective financial arrangements for the support of children are reached. Other organisations are better placed to deal with emotional needs, which will vary from case to case and from family to family. Those will be backed up by the initiatives that are being taken across Government, as I have already explained. In helping parents to agree their financial responsibilities, the commission will provide greater financial stability for the household in which the child lives. That can only help resolve emotional matters.
On the issues raised in amendment No. 85 and the importance of the phrase “appropriate voluntary arrangements”, I can provide complete reassurance to the Committee that the commission must already take account of the wishes of one or both parents. The objectives require the commission to maximise effective maintenance arrangements. The subsidiary objectives require the commission to encourage and support the making of appropriate voluntary arrangements. I was relieved to hear the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire say that he did not wish to remove the word “appropriate”, because it serves a critical purpose in the clause, as he rightly acknowledged.
The words “effective” and “appropriate” are important. “Effective”, as I have already mentioned, means an arrangement that works. “Appropriate” means an arrangement that is suitable to the circumstances of the parents in question; it is the right type of arrangement, at the right level, and it is sustainable. If the commission attempted to encourage voluntary arrangements against the wishes of one or both parents, it would end up failing to achieve its objectives. The arrangement would be unlikely to work if it was not what both parents wanted.
If the Committee is concerned that parents will be forced into unfair voluntary arrangements, I would like to reassure it that an application can be made to the statutory maintenance service at any point by either parent. That would override any existing voluntary arrangement.

Michael Weir: I am slightly concerned about that. I accept what the Minister is saying, but I understood that by allowing voluntary arrangements, an allowance other than the weekly maintenance would be paid. Will that not be undermined if either party can take the matter to CMEC after a voluntary agreement has been entered into?

James Plaskitt: No. If a voluntary agreement breaks down, there is clearly a need for referral to the statutory scheme, because maintenance has ceased to flow and our overriding objective is the welfare of children. If a voluntary agreement has broken down because either party is not honouring it—the most likely scenario is that the non-resident parent ceases to pay maintenance—the only way to get payment flowing again, which is what is important in the interests of the child, might be to bring the statutory system to bear on the case.

Michael Weir: That is not the point. Some couples might decide to have a clean break and transfer a large capital sum from one to the other in lieu of weekly or monthly maintenance in a voluntary agreement. Unless that agreement can be written in stone once the capital has been transferred, there is a serious problem because one party may later decide to go to CMEC to ask for maintenance, and disregard the earlier capital transfer. That was a problem with the CSA and I understood that the voluntary agreements were designed partly to get round that problem.

James Plaskitt: The switch to voluntary arrangements has a number of drivers behind it. Many parents are able to come to a voluntary arrangement and cheerfully do so. Voluntary arrangements work well on the whole and often endure better than other arrangements, so we obviously want to encourage separating couples to make them. The whole reason for withdrawing the clause 6 obligation is to prevent parents who are separating from being forced into the statutorily-based arrangement when the parent with care of the child is on benefits, because a voluntary arrangement might be within reach. That is currently denied because of the existence of the clause 6 stipulation, which needs to go. That will encourage people to move to voluntary arrangements. I am simply saying that we cannot—nobody can—prescribe what the nature of the voluntary agreements will be; by definition, they will be arrived at between the two parties. In future, if such an agreement breaks down, the parent with care ought to have recourse to a system to put in place a flow of child maintenance. In assessing whether that system is likely to be taken up, the content of previous voluntary agreements will be a factor for consideration.
The Bill brings in new powers to strengthen and streamline the enforcement of debt management, as has already been discussed, as well as the powers at the commission’s disposal. I hope that I have covered all the points made and that I have reassured Members who have spoken to the amendments that they are not essential and can be withdrawn.

Paul Rowen: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: No. 72, in clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert
‘, and to support these parents’ joint responsibility to ensure financial support and, whenever possible, emotional support, having regard to the welfare of the children affected by these arrangements.’.—[Andrew Selous.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 12.

Question accordingly negatived.

Michael Weir: I beg to move amendment No. 87, in clause 2, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
‘(c) to advise on existing systems of creating, registering and enforcing voluntary arrangements including, in Scotland, the ability to register such agreements in the Books of Council and Session.’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 88, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert
‘, and such information shall include information on existing systems of creating, registering and enforcing voluntary agreements including, in Scotland, the ability to register such agreements in the Books of Council and Session.’.

Michael Weir: I should declare an interest at the outset. I am non-practising solicitor, although I remain a member of the Law Society of Scotland. When I was working as a solicitor before entering the House, I dealt with family law. That experience drives me to try to make procedures for separation relatively simple and quickly enforceable. Enforceability is vital in any sort of agreement.
The amendments are more or less identical, so I shall deal with them together. They refer to a procedure in Scots law that could be useful to those who are considering entering a voluntary agreement under the Bill. I do not know whether such a procedure exists in the law of England and Wales, so I shall confine my comments to the Scottish situation. I have raised the issue on several occasions with the Secretary of State and with his predecessor. I drew encouragement from Lord McKenzie in our evidence session, when he confirmed that there was nothing in the Bill to prevent the continued use of minutes of agreement recorded in the Books of Council and Session. I think that there is a problem relating to section 4 of the 1991 Act, but that is the subject of a later amendment.
Members might recall that, in our evidence-taking session, there was a great deal of discussion about the use of agreements between the parties. Although I support the Government’s proposals to allow parents to enter an agreement between themselves, I am concerned about how it will be done and about the advice and information that will be given to those entering such agreements. From the evidence, it seems clear that information will be given via the internet, by telephone or perhaps in a face-to-face session. I raised questions about how the agreements will be recorded and monitored, and I was not particularly reassured by the answers that I received. I appreciate that we are still waiting for regulations on the exact nature of the agreements, but the Bill does not state even that any such agreement should be in writing. I suggest that if they are not reduced to writing, we will face disaster in future.
During a previous debate, I was somewhat concerned by the Minister’s comments on minutes of agreement. Many minutes of agreement may contain an offset of capital against regular income, and I am not sure that that situation has yet been properly addressed.
In her evidence, Janet Allbeson noted that minutes of agreement could not be enforced, but that is not quite the case; under the Scottish system, they can be enforced. In essence, the system that operates in Scotland allows any two parties to enter into an agreement, which can then be recorded in the books of council and session, which is effectively part of the public registers of Scotland. The original deed is retained by the register, and an extract is issued with a guarantee that it is a true copy of the original.
The register is typically used to ensure that important documents are not lost. For instance, the wills of deceased persons are recorded there. For our purposes, however, it is often used to record agreements—in particular, agreements reached by separating or divorcing couples. Such agreements can cover all aspects of the separation, and not only monetary matters. For example, they can deal with capital and with access arrangements for the children and the like.
The important additional factor for present purposes is that, if an agreement includes a statement that it may be recorded for execution, it will have the same effect as a court decree. Therefore, if parties enter into an agreement and register it and either party does not adhere to it, it can be enforced without the need to obtain a court order—or, for our purposes, starting afresh by going to CMEC.
The Minister may remember that concern was raised on Second Reading that if a voluntary agreement were to break down the parties might have to go back to stage one by making an application to CMEC. If they had entered into a registered minute of agreement, that would not be necessary, as the agreement could be enforced. Clearly, that will have immense benefits for parents with care, who will undoubtedly wish to take prompt action if they are not getting the money that had been promised.
The purpose of the amendments is simply to make it clear to those who seek advice that there are procedures other than using only the statutory CMEC procedures or entering into a voluntary agreement of the type that CMEC suggests. They can enter into a minute of agreement and register it, which has the additional benefit that it can be enforced. If CMEC is to have a standard minute of agreement, there is nothing to stop it including a declaration that it may be recorded for preservation and execution; that would allow the agreements to be executed without the need to go back to CMEC, or to court, if such things fall apart.
I note also that the books of council and session are already available for use in other areas relating to children. I shall cite an example. Under section 4(1) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, unmarried parents can register an agreement that gives the father parental rights in respect of the child. Under Scots law, as in England, a mother has automatic parental rights but a father does not. The agreement is simple—I have an example—and it can be recorded in the books. It has binding force and gives parental rights to the father.
There is precedent. The use of minutes of agreement should at least be considered by CMEC, because if agreements are to have any life, they must be easily enforced. If agreements simply delay matters, with applications having to be made to CMEC and the whole procedure having to be started again, the system will fail.

James Plaskitt: We are straying again into Scottish law. In replying to the debate, I shall keep a beady eye on my the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, in case I stray from the truth.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for moving the amendment, as he gives me the opportunity to highlight the Government’s interest in supporting parents in agreeing suitable maintenance arrangements for their children and the part that effective voluntary arrangements play in that.
The hon. Gentleman is concerned about how minutes of agreement, which are available to parents in Scotland, will fit into the new system of child maintenance, and it might help if I try to explain that. Minutes of agreement are voluntary written agreements, entered into by both parents, usually after they have received legal advice, and registered in the books of council and session and therefore enforceable. The equivalent in England and Wales are consent orders—the court makes an order that reflects a written maintenance agreement between parents. Again, that is usually done after legal advice has been given.
Under the Child Support Act 1991, the minute of agreement or consent order can be overturned in two contexts. First, if the parent with care claims income-related benefit, any minute of agreement or consent order that contains child maintenance is overturned, whether or not the parents are content with that agreement. Secondly, where parents are not on benefit, minutes of agreement or consent orders can be overturned after 12 months if one of them—or, in Scotland, a child aged 12 or more—is not happy with the arrangement and applies to the CSA for a maintenance calculation.
The Bill will rightly break the link with the benefits system, so that consent orders or minutes of agreement can continue for as long as both parents want them to, with no interference from the statutory maintenance scheme. To be absolutely clear, the commission will not overturn any minute of agreement unless that is expressly desired by one or more of the parties.
Amendment No. 87 would give the commission an additional subsidiary objective: to advise on existing ways of creating, registering or enforcing voluntary arrangements, particularly minutes of agreement in Scotland. Amendment No. 88 would place a duty on the commission, as part of its information and guidance function, to give parents information about how to create, register and enforce such arrangements.
The commission’s main objective, as stated in the draft Bill, will be to maximise the number of effective maintenance arrangements in place. Effective arrangements are those that work and that are right for the parents in question. For some parents, such an arrangement will need to be made through the statutory scheme. For others, it will be a voluntary arrangement of some kind—a private agreement, a consent order or a minute of agreement. Where parents can take responsibility for making their own maintenance arrangement, we believe that that is the best way forward. Arrangements reached by agreement can work very well and, where appropriate, they are often highly successful in delivering maintenance to children.
We want the arrangements to continue, and it is right that parents should be made aware of the range of options available to them for arranging maintenance and receiving general guidance on how to establish such arrangements. We recognise that there are already systems that allow parents to make their own maintenance arrangements outside the statutory maintenance schemes. The amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Angus refers to one such route—minutes of agreement. In England and Wales, parents can ask a court to make a written maintenance agreement in a consent order, although that is usually done on divorce, when other financial issues have to be settled.
I am not clear as to the purpose of the amendment, although I understand that the hon. Gentleman has concerns about the position of minutes of agreement under the new system. I hope that my comments have allayed them. If his purpose is to ensure that parents will be made aware of the range of options available to them, I can reassure him that that purpose is already captured not only by the commission’s main objective to maximise the number of children with effective maintenance arrangements, but by the provisions of clause 5, which makes it clear that the commission must provide information and guidance to parents to help them to secure effective maintenance arrangements. If that his intention, I hope that he will agree to withdraw the amendment, as it is not necessary.
However, if the intention of the amendment is to ensure that the commission gives detailed information and advice as to how to create, register and enforce a minute of agreement, I cannot agree that the commission should be statutorily obliged to provide such a service. Minutes of agreement and consent orders are not restricted solely to matters of child maintenance. They may deal with a range of financial issues on divorce or separation. It would not be right to involve the commission directly in wider issues of family law, or to require it to provide detailed guidance on what could be highly technical matters that may need to take account of a range of financial issues and other complex individual circumstances. For that reason, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Michael Weir: I have listened to the Minister, and I will not press the amendment to a vote. My purpose in tabling it was simply to highlight the issue and to make the point that it is important that the commission does not just rely on a standard minute of agreement that it has produced without making it clear to couples that other options are available. If that is to be made clear, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: No. 29, in clause 2, page 1, line 19, at end add—
‘(4) In pursuing and having regard to its objectives, and in the exercise of its functions, the Commission shall have regard to the welfare of any children likely to be affected.’.—[Paul Rowen.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 10.

Question accordingly negatived.

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 73, in clause 2, page 1, line 19, at end insert—
‘(4) In relation to the Commission’s subsidiary objective in subsection (2)(a), the Commission shall have the power to use its enforcement powers in respect of appropriate voluntary maintenance agreements.’.
This is the last amendment to clause 2 that we will debate this afternoon. It brings us back to an issue that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare in a number of interventions on the Secretary of State on Second Reading. I am aware that there are different views on the subject, but I still think that it merits a little more debate. My intention in moving the amendment is simply to ensure that we have a system that works.
The Minister does not know, and I do not know, what the take-up for private voluntary arrangements will be. The first objective of the commission in subsection (2)(a) is
“to encourage and support the making and keeping by parents of appropriate voluntary maintenance arrangements”.
The objective of the CMEC scheme is purely to support that. The whole premise of CMEC is that the Minister and the Department hope that there will be a big take-up for voluntary arrangements. If that is the case, we all hope that they will work.
Given all the difficulties that we debated this morning, if parents with care are to contemplate going down the voluntary route without the protection of the agency for enforcement, they need to have some conviction that the agreement that they enter into will be worth the paper that it is written on and will have some weight behind it. I know that the Minister will respond shortly that a voluntary arrangement is just that, that it is not the business of CMEC to get involved and that it has enough on its plate sorting out the historic debt, which we have debated, and ensuring that the maintenance arrangements that it is responsible for under subsection 2(b) are working. That is a perfectly reasonable response.
My contention, however, is that if members of the public make their own voluntary arrangements, which then break down, they will arrive at the door of CMEC requiring it to do a lot more work than purely enforcing the agreement. If they come out of a voluntary agreement, they arrive at CMEC’s door needing advice, information, a calculation, an assessment and so on, and all of that needs to be set up. If the voluntary private agreement breaks down, there is a lot of extra work, which the Minister is trying to discourage—or certainly not trying to encourage.
I am trying to help the Minister to get where he wants to be, with a lot of voluntary arrangements that work, that people are happy with and that parents with care have some confidence can endure. His counter-argument will be that it is not up to CMEC to enforce agreements and parents have the option of coming into the full statutory scheme. However, that will create a lot more work than my proposal would, which intends merely to use the enforcement part of CMEC to oversee voluntary arrangements.
I want to get to the place that the Minister wants to get to. I am just not entirely convinced that the big stick of saying, “If it doesn’t work, you will be brought kicking and screaming into the CMEC apparatus,” is necessarily going to be enough. None of us knows what the reaction of the public will be.

Stephen Hesford: If the hon. Gentleman’s scheme comes into force and the hitherto voluntary agreements come into the CMEC system for enforcement, such agreements would cease to be voluntary. They would be coming for enforcement only because they had ceased to be agreements and had broken down, so how can that work?

Andrew Selous: That is a lawyer’s argument in terms of its strict divisions. We are lucky to have a number of lawyers on the Committee and I shall be interested in what they say, but I am one of those men who do not think that lawyers always have a monopoly of wisdom on every subject.
We are creating a Bill and have flexibility: we have blank pieces of paper that we can fill in. I want to tease out from the Minister whether it is possible for a residual enforcement power to be available. The hon. Member for Wirral, West is right that that would change the nature of the agreement and I accept that it would no longer be voluntary. However, my proposal does not go all the way to being the complete bells-and-whistles CMEC arrangement that the Minister is trying to discourage. It would not be the cause of a lot more work and expense for CMEC.
I hope that the Minister will accept the spirit of the amendment. He might not agree with it, but I am trying to help him to get to the place where he wants to be. There is a genuine divergence of view out there. If he can convince me that there is an effective way to do it, I will be happy to withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen: As the previous debate on the amendment of the hon. Member for Angus shows, there is concern about what will happen if one of the parents reneges on the agreement when the number of voluntary agreements increases. We are all seeking assurance from the Minister that there will not be a situation in which the parent with care is left waiting for years before their case is resolved, as with some cases at the moment.
I come back to the principal concern of the Bill, which is the care and maintenance of the child. That must be central to everything that we do and appropriate administrative arrangements must be in place so that if a voluntary agreement breaks down, it can be speedily resolved. I hope that the Minister will say to us that if the amendment is withdrawn, he will come forward with regulations and, as one of the later amendments seeks to do, set clear time scales to ensure that cases are dealt with quickly. We have already lost a generation of children who have not had the care and maintenance that they deserve, and we want to ensure with CMEC that that does not happen; that it is clearly explained to people what will happen if a voluntary arrangement breaks down; and that there are clear targets to ensure that if CMEC’s statutory scheme is applied, it will be dealt with as a priority, and not be put on the back burner because CMEC has too big a case load to deal with its statutory cases.

James Plaskitt: I reassure hon. Members that the commission must support parents in achieving the best arrangements for them, in order to meet the objective of ensuring that the maximum number of effective maintenance arrangements are in place. We know that for some parents who have a voluntary arrangement, that is the best possible solution, particularly in situations where communication between parents is good, and there is no dispute over the need for continuing support.
Many parents will not fall into that category at the outset, at least, and they need a legally enforceable arrangement to ensure that maintenance flows to their children. In principle, it is important to draw a distinction between maintenance agreements that parents themselves agree and maintain, and those that require state involvement. The commission will support parents in creating voluntary agreements, whenever circumstances make that appropriate, and will offer them support to maintain those agreements. We know that there are at least 500,000 voluntary arrangements already in place, and that both compliance levels and the amounts of awards are generally higher than where there is recourse to arrangements made by the state.
However, if a voluntary arrangement breaks down irretrievably, the best approach is to support the parents into the statutory scheme to secure an ongoing liability. I do not think that it would be appropriate or helpful for the commission, in effect, to extend its reach over every voluntary arrangement in place now, or created in future. I fail to see how that supports wider Government objectives to encourage parental responsibility. I also fail to see how it could make the maintenance system, and the choices therein, comprehensible to many of our more vulnerable constituents.
On a practical level, I also find it difficult to see how the commission could enforce the arrears, for example, that arise out of voluntary arrangements. The situation that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire seeks with his amendment to put CMEC into, is an odd one. Blurring the distinction between the role of the agency in respect of statutory agreements, and its powers in relation to those that are voluntary—that is an important word—would imply that CMEC’s enforcement powers lie behind arrangements which CMEC has had no part whatever in determining. It would also be odd—and I think that he would agree with me if he reflects on it—to put CMEC in a situation where it has to come in as the enforcer of arrangements which it has no responsibility for bringing about in the first place. It would have to attempt to understand and unravel those arrangements in order to apply enforcement. He would have it doing that in an unlimited number of cases. It would not be reasonable to expect the commission to be the enforcer of a huge array of bewilderingly different, and often quite complex, arrangements.
Although we would like parents to make voluntary arrangements, with an understanding of what they would be eligible for under a statutory scheme, parents will be able to come to their own detailed agreements. Forthcoming qualitative research shows that parents often agree on an array of payment frequencies and amounts to fit in with their individual circumstances.
For example, the parent may agree that payments need not be made during the school holidays while the child is staying with the non-resident parent. Also, arrangements can sometimes be made up of a lower regular cash payment, which is supplemented by periodical in-kind payments, such as the payment of utility bills or school uniform purchases.
Although that type of flexibility can be good for families, it would be difficult for the commission to apply its enforcement powers reliably and accurately to any voluntary arrangement of that nature. That is because it would require the commission to work out what payments had been made, whether records had been kept and on what basis, and whether arrears had only accrued because of a major change in circumstances that the voluntary agreement had not taken account of, but which the commission would need to. The hon. Gentleman is asking for an impossible job to be done. On an ongoing basis, it would also be difficult to vary, review or uprate those types of arrangement. Again, it would require the commission to invest a huge amount of resource and effort in working out the basis on which such payments had been agreed. For those practical reasons alone, I hope that he will ask leave to withdraw his amendment.

Andrew Selous: I listened carefully to the Minister and found his response more convincing than some of the responses he has given me this afternoon. I intend to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I say to him in passing that CMEC’s enforcement will have to be a lot better than the CSA’s has been. There are massive enforcement clauses, which we are coming to, but the Minister’s presumption will only work and there will only be an increase in voluntary arrangements if parents know that the CMEC scheme has some teeth and will be applied meaningfully. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Functions of the Commission: general

Paul Rowen: I beg to move amendment No. 80, in clause 3, page 2, line 11, after ‘efficiently’, insert
‘and the Secretary of State may by regulation provide for the Commission to be liable to pay compensation where—
(a) maladministration by the Commission is accepted, or
(b) the Commission has exercised its power to write off arrears in accordance with section 41E of the Child Support Act 1991, as inserted by section 31 of this Act.’.
The clause deals with some of the general functions of the commission. The amendment seeks to ensure that something is set up and included in the Bill to deal with payment of compensation where there is a clear case of maladministration or where, as I mentioned earlier, the commission has exercised its power to write off arrears, particularly, as has been mentioned earlier, in the case of past debt.
Currently, the CSA, because it is an arm of the Department for Work and Pensions, uses the “Guide to financial redress for maladministration”, which allows financial redress if certain criteria are fulfilled. Given that CMEC will not be part of the Department, but will be an independent body, can such a financial redress guide apply? If it will not apply, what arrangements will the Minister put in place to ensure that clear criteria are set out to allow, in certain agreed cases, for financial redress?
At the moment, the system operated in respect of the “Guide to financial redress for maladministration” is not very good. I refer the Minister to the independent case examiners’ annual report 2006-07, which stated that a
“particular problem to date has been the Agency’s”—
that is, the CSA’s—
“failure to identify the need for financial redress despite acknowledging its maladministration. During the year, we identified 618 cases where the question of financial loss or an advance payment of arrears arose. Disappointingly, over 80% of these had not been considered for financial redress when the Agency itself looked at the complaint.”
That is a damning statement of the CSA’s current operation. We are now moving to the commission and I hope that the Minister will say that proper procedures and arrangements will be put in place to ensure that, when maladministration is demonstrated, a clear mechanism will be set out whereby a parent can receive the payment in compensation.
The Minister might say that the second route that will be applied is that of the parliamentary ombudsman. However, we all know that at present the recommendations of the parliamentary ombudsman are not binding on the CSA. They are only recommendations. Of the 618 cases that the case examiners looked at, the CSA had not even considered the payment of compensation in 80 per cent. of them. It is important to have a fresh start. We are saying that the new agency will change what has happened in the past. We must have an assurance or some mechanism to ensure that compensation will be paid when maladministration has been demonstrated.

Andrew Selous: I should be grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on how the application of maladministration under the measure that he is proposing would be different from the reaction that we have received from the Government to the verdict of maladministration in respect of occupational pensions. That was a source of considerable dispute on the Floor of the House yesterday afternoon.

Paul Rowen: As a member of the Public Administration Committee, we discussed such matters this morning. We agreed on behalf of all parties to write to all hon. Members to request that they look clearly at the issue, as the debate demonstrated yesterday, and at the principle that people have not been given proper redress. It is important that, as a fresh start, we set out what will happen. If something goes wrong, we will make it clear to the commissioners what we expect them to do. Parents and children have a clear right to expect that.
We are having a fresh start. We do not want to go back to the mess that has existed with the CSA. I hope that the Minister will reassure us and, if he is not willing to accept the amendment, that he will introduce regulations that set out the position clearly. He will have to do that anyway, because CMEC will not be part of the Department for Work and Pensions, so in a sense the maladministration guide should not apply. We need a clear statement from him, as do parents, about how maladministration will be dealt with.

James Plaskitt: Let me see whether I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. In a similar way to the scheme that is currently operated by the Department, the commission will administer a compensation scheme for cases of maladministration. It will provide recompense when commission error has an adverse effect on the lives of our customers. That is standard practice for a non-departmental public body of that type, and it can be administered by the commission as being incidental to its functions, without the need for the specific provision that he seeks.

Andrew Selous: Will the Minister say whether the payment will be the level of compensation that the CSA currently pays, which is about £50 for the inefficient handling of a case? Are we talking about the same sort of amounts or slightly higher?

James Plaskitt: As the hon. Gentleman knows, payments of the sort to which he has referred are made by the existing agency. There are also special conciliatory payments, which can be much higher than that. I envisage that a range of payments will be available under the existing scheme, but I would not like to anticipate precisely what levels they will be at. The current scheme will provide financial redress for maladministration by making payments to remedy actual financial loss and exceptionally, as I have just said, consolatory payments to acknowledge the personal impact of an error. It is for those reasons that one cannot anticipate the levels, which will often be case specific.
Details of this compensation scheme will be decided by the commission, albeit within certain parameters set by the Secretary of State through the financial memorandum and guidance powers, and subject to usual Government accounting rules and principles. The commission will also handle any cases of maladministration that occurred before the transfer of functions from the Secretary of State to the commission on behalf of the Secretary of State.
We have decided against seeking a blanket power to write off debt that may appear to be unrecoverable. We are, however, seeking a power in clause 31 to write off debt in very limited, carefully specified circumstances. Those circumstances include where a parent with care has asked for cessation of recovery of debt and where it would be unfair or inappropriate to continue seeking the recovery of debt—for example, where a parent with care and a non-resident parent are reconciled, and the parent with care requests that CMEC does not recover the debt.
We also propose to write off debt where the non-resident parent is deceased and the debt cannot be recovered from the estate. In most cases, the commission will act in accordance with the wishes of the parent with care, and compensation will therefore not be appropriate. Where the commission accepts that there has been maladministration on a particular case, compensation would be dealt with through the scheme, as I have just outlined.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. Perhaps he will provide us with a note giving us an idea of the range and how the scheme will operate.

James Plaskitt: I think that I covered that in response to an earlier intervention. It is difficult to quantify the range when, as I have indicated, some of the settlements will be highly case specific on assessments of injury to the party concerned. Therefore I will not commit to specifying the payments, which cannot be exemplified in the way in which the hon. Gentleman seeks.
In conclusion, the Department already operates a compensation scheme for maladministration that is accepted by the ombudsman, and the commission will operate a similar scheme. The commission will also be responsible for administering complaints and compensation relating to maladministration that occurred before it came into being. Furthermore, where the commission uses its new power to write off debt, it will in most cases be acting in accordance with the wishes of the parent with care. I hope that that has reassured the hon. Gentleman and that he will withdraw his amendment.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, which will reassure many parents. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 11, at end add—
‘(4) The Commission must publish accurate and timely management information data in order to facilitate scrutiny of its performance.’.
We are back on to the subject of the provision of timely and accurate information by the new body, which will obviously start from a pretty troubled place given the current state of the CSA. My contention is that it will need careful scrutiny and monitoring of its performance on a range of fronts. We have heard about the debt issues. That certainly would be among the management information that I want to see CMEC produce regularly.
Obviously, CMEC will be non-departmental public body. Some concerns have already been expressed that it will be slightly more removed and perhaps slightly less subject to parliamentary scrutiny than would otherwise be the case. We would therefore like clause 3 to require the commission to publish the key indicators of its performance, so that pressure can continue to be put on it to ensure that it becomes the type of organisation that we all want it to become.

James Plaskitt: I think that this will be a brief debate, because I assure the hon. Gentleman that the commission is already required to publish a range of information to allow sufficient scrutiny. The commission, like many other non-departmental public bodies, such as the pensions regulator, is required to prepare, publish and lay before Parliament annual reports and accounts each financial year. The report must cover all the commission’s activities, but, in addition, we require the inclusion of four other matters: first, the commission’s strategic direction, including information on how that direction is kept under review year by year; secondly, the commission’s objectives and targets, including information on the steps that are being taken to meet them and the extent to which they have been met; thirdly, the steps taken to monitor the commission’s performance in ensuring that its functions are exercised effectively and efficiently; and fourthly, information on the extent to which the commission has relied on the contracting out provision in clause 8.

Andrew Selous: I would be grateful if the Minister were to point out where those requirements are in either the Bill or the regulatory impact assessment.

James Plaskitt: The requirements do not appear in the Bill, but they will be evident in due course, primarily through regulations. Collectively, they will provide a comprehensive, accurate and timely report on the commission by which its performance can be scrutinised by Parliament. We also anticipate that, like the CSA, the commission will continue to publish on a regular basis a summary of management information statistics.
I hope that I have reassured the hon. Gentleman that the amendment is not necessary, because the matter has already been covered. On those grounds, I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous: This brief debate has illustrated one of the problems with the way in which the Government have brought the Bill forward compared with the Welfare Reform Act 2007. That measure was prepared by the same Department, and my colleagues who served in the Committee that considered it were provided with draft regulations. I do not know whether the Department and its officials were scarred by the experience of having to provide such information, but we are debating only the broad outline or skeleton of these measures.
I am grateful to the Minister for letting us know that the detail of exactly what CMEC will be required to report will be made available in regulations. Of course, members of the Statutory Instrument Committees that consider the regulations will only have a choice of accepting or rejecting the regulations in their entirety, and they will not be able to add things to them. It would have been helpful to have such information in draft regulations.
Having said that, I have no reason to doubt the Minister’s word. I am reassured that management information will be copious, adequate, and frequently supplied. From that, we will be able to tell, clearly and easily, whether CMEC is achieving its objectives and whether it is going backwards, forwards or standing still. On the basis of what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Promotion of child maintenance

Paul Rowen: I beg to move amendment No. 30, in clause 4, page 2, line 15, leave out ‘taking responsibility for’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 31, in clause 4, page 2, line 17, at end add—
‘, whether by voluntary arrangements or by use of the statutory scheme’.

Paul Rowen: The purpose of the amendments is to expand on the clause. I do not believe that they are controversial. They would make it clear that there are two means by which child maintenance can be paid: by voluntary means or by the statutory scheme. Although we understand why the Government wish to promote the use of the voluntary scheme—if parents can come to an agreement about child maintenance that is obviously the preferable means of agreeing a way forward—there are times when that is not the case. We want the Bill to give equal weight and substance to the voluntary and the statutory schemes.
Many parents find it impossible to reach a voluntary agreement because they end up in very difficult relationships. For example, 35 per cent. of lone parents experience violence in their relationship and in such circumstances there is no way in which a voluntary scheme will work. As we discussed, a voluntary arrangement is suitable only if both parties agree to it. 
The amendment would ensure that maintenance is promoted and that people are made aware, through the information systems that will be set up, that equal weight will be given to the voluntary and to the statutory scheme. It is important to ensure that a parent in difficult circumstances who has been subject to domestic violence is fully aware of their statutory entitlement and of what CMEC can do to ensure that that entitlement is delivered.

James Plaskitt: As the hon. Gentleman said, the intention behind the amendment is for the commission to promote the importance of child maintenance in an even-handed way, as he would see it, and allow parents themselves to choose whether they prefer a voluntary or a statutory arrangement. However, I would be extremely loth to lose the important words “taking responsibility”, which are clearly enshrined in the Bill as drafted. The amendment appears to be based on a misunderstanding of what clause 4 intends to do.
The clause places a duty on the commission to promote awareness among parents of the importance of taking responsibility for the maintenance of their children and securing maintenance in whatever way is most appropriate. It therefore provides the commission with the power to run campaigns to have a positive influence on both parents, emphasising the importance of agreeing, establishing and maintaining effective maintenance arrangements.
However, the clause does not apply only in relation to voluntary maintenance arrangements. The purpose of the wording that the amendment would remove is simply to recognise that without compulsion the impetus for initiating the maintenance arrangement, whether through an application to the commission or by making a voluntary agreement, will always lie with at least one of the parents rather than with the state. Any promotion or awareness-raising activity needs to reflect that. For that reason, the amendment is superfluous, as the wording of clause 4(b) does not attempt to distinguish between different types of arrangements or indicate a preference between them for the purposes of promotion.
In exercising that function, as with others it is being given, the commission must aim to realise its overall objectives—in other words, to maximise the total number of effective maintenance arrangements in place. To do that, it must encourage and support appropriate voluntary maintenance arrangements and support the making of applications to the statutory maintenance service.
The commission has no desire to push people inappropriately into unstable voluntary maintenance arrangements; indeed, it would be failing if any action led to that. I understand the motivation behind the amendment, but I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that both this function and others, such as information and guidance, will be exercised on the basis that parents are best placed to decide what sort of arrangements suit their children’s needs. The commission’s role is to encourage them actively to consider the issue, make them aware of the choices they face and support them through the decision-making process. I hope that that reassures him and that he will withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful for that clarification. I admit that amendment No. 30 was based on a misunderstanding, but the Minister has explained that the words “taking responsibility for” are quite important. I understand also what he had to say about amendment No. 31. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 74, in clause 4, page 2, line 17, at end insert—
‘(c) promote a culture of responsible parenting in which material and emotional support are given throughout childhood.’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 77, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert
‘, and for the purpose of supporting both parents with care and non-resident parents in providing emotional support to their children.’.

Andrew Selous: This will, I believe, be a relatively brief debate, as I put my arguments earlier, as persuasively as I could. I fear that it will again be a case of winning the argument but losing the vote. I was not successful in persuading the Committee to back earlier amendments on the subject, and I shall probably be no more successful with this one.
The purpose of the amendments is to achieve what I set out to do in earlier ones—to enlarge the scope of the provision to allow consideration of the welfare of the child not only in financial terms. I did not expect CMEC to do it, so it was obviously necessary to try to amend clause 2, but we also need to amend clauses 4 and 5, which is what amendments Nos. 74 and 77 respectively would do.
The Minister may wheel out his earlier notes and some ink could be saved as he will probably make the same arguments as he made in the earlier debate. Of course, his officials may be so wonderful as to give him a fresh set of arguments for every amendment, even if they are essentially on the same theme. None the less, I shall not try the Committee’s patience by saying again what I said earlier. It is on the record. I said it on Tuesday and again this morning. I have put my case, and I will doubtless receive the same response.

James Plaskitt: Yes, the hon. Gentleman will receive much the same response. If he trades his previously used words for mine, we can expedite the Committee’s proceedings.
The Government of course recognise the central role that parents play in determining their children’s outcomes and well-being. We know that the way in which parents continue to engage with each other to support their children after separation can have a major impact on the children’s well-being. A low level of conflict between parents and a good quality relationship with the resident parent can minimise the negative impacts that separation might otherwise have on a child’s health, social and educational outcomes.
For that reason, one of the functions of the new information and support service will be to provide some basic information and to signpost parents to the appropriate services that will provide them with the expert help that they need. That is why we have made provision in clause 5(2) to enable the commission to provide information in relation to wider separation issues, when those issues arise as part of discussions about child maintenance.
We want to ensure that children’s emotional needs are effectively supported, and we obviously recognise the link between emotional and material well-being. However, we must ensure that the commission knows where its expertise lies and that it uses it appropriately. That is essential if the Government are to realise their objective in relation to child poverty. Other organisations have expertise on the emotional aspects of family breakdown, and if parents need such help we would expect the commission to support them in gaining access to these services. As I explained, there will also be cross-Government initiatives to provide support.
In summary, I suggest that the amendments would place a duty on the commission that goes well beyond its main objective and in a way that is not appropriate. As before, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous: If my understanding of your helpful guidance this morning is right, Mr. Chope, the Minister can respond once more if he seeks to catch your eye. I would therefore like to prolong the debate slightly, if I may.
The first line of amendment No. 74 uses the word “culture” again. I know that the Government are keen to change the culture. The Minister talked about signposting the different organisations that would carry out some of the provisions suggested in amendments Nos. 74 and 77, but I would like to hear a little more about the Government’s cross-departmental plans to change the culture and promote the sense of parental responsibility, about which he was talking earlier. I think that the details are still sketchy.

James Plaskitt: I am happy to contribute briefly to this extension of the debate, although it takes me beyond my Department’s remit, as it is a cross-Government programme.
The Government understand the challenges that parents face, and we recognise the need to give them as much support as possible to help them deal with those. The hon. Gentleman will know that such work is already done in family centres and children’s centres that are being established all over the country and which do extremely valuable work. They have evolved from Sure Start programmes. I do not know whether he has had the same experience in his constituency as I have had in mine, but I have heard from many lone parents that the programmes have been of incredible value, giving parents a forum in which to meet and to exchange experiences and information. I know of many parents in those circumstances who say that they thought that they were battling with those issues on their own, which is much harder to do than if they are part of a group sharing a common experience.
The centres can also signpost parents to many other forms of support that will help them. Building on that, and extending the initiatives across many Departments, including my own and those for education and social and health services, will provide many points of access for those presenting a particular parenting need at any given time. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Gentleman and that he will support the Government’s initiatives, as I think that we are trying to achieve the same outcome—helping parents to meet the tough challenges that their responsibility can present.
The particular role of the agency—or CMEC, as it will become—is to ensure that all our energies and focus go into tackling what is just one of a series of stresses that arise from family break-ups. If we can be certain that in reforming child maintenance we are alleviating one source of pressure and strain on parents, it will be our contribution to giving the breadth of emotional support that the hon. Gentleman wishes to see. Our efforts are being complemented by those of other Departments and non-governmental organisations.

Andrew Selous: I am grateful for the Minister’s further elaboration on that point and I shall not seek to press either of the amendments to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Provision of information and guidance

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 75, in clause 5, page 2, line 19, leave out ‘provide to parents’ and insert
‘ensure that parents are provided with’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 76, in clause 5, page 2, line 23, leave out ‘may provide information’ and insert
‘may ensure that information is provided’.
No. 17, in clause 5, page 2, line 24, at end add—
‘(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations make arrangements to allow information and guidance under subsection (1) to be provided in conjunction with other services delivered by any relevant authority to parents and children who are experiencing or who have experienced family breakdown.
(4) In this section “relevant authority” means—
(a) any Minister of the Crown or department of the Government of the United Kingdom;
(b) a public body specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.
(5) Any regulations made under subsection (3) may be made so as to have effect for a specified period not exceeding 24 months.
(6) A pilot scheme may provide that its provisions are to apply only in relation to—
(a) one or more specified areas or localities;
(b) one or more specified classes of person;
(c) persons selected by reference to prescribed criteria, or on a sampling basis.
(7) A pilot scheme may make consequential or transitional provision with respect to the cessation of the scheme on the expiry of the specified period.
(8) A pilot scheme may be replaced by a further pilot scheme making the same or similar provision.’.
No. 35, in clause 5, page 2, line 24, at end add—
‘(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations make arrangements to allow information and guidance under subsection (1) to be provided in conjunction with other services delivered by any relevant authority to parents and children who are experiencing or who have experienced family breakdown.
(4) In this section “relevant authority” means—
(a) any Minister of the Crown or department of the Government of the United Kingdom;
(b) a public body specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.’.

Andrew Selous: The clause deals with the provision of information and guidance, about which we have heard a lot this afternoon. The hon. Member for Angus said earlier that he did not think that it was appropriate for CMEC to provide some of the practical advice to parents on the issues of separation about which I have been talking. I responded that I agreed with him, and I told him that my hon. Friends and I had tabled amendments that would address that. That is what amendments Nos. 75 and 76 would do, in that they would change the phrases “provide to parents” to “ensure that parents are provided with” and “may provide information” to “may ensure that information is provided”. That is not semantics; I am not just playing grammatical games. I am making the point that, as the Minister just said, the important thing is that the information and guidance should be provided, not that it needs to be provided by CMEC. Indeed, in many cases, because of the reputation and record of the CSA, it may best not be provided by CMEC.
Amendment No. 17 would ensure a cross-governmental approach to the provision of advice, information and guidance. The Minister has just been talking about that and now has the chance to put his vote where his words were, so I hope that he will welcome the amendment warmly and I look forward to receiving his support. The amendment has the support of a number of bodies outside the House that are concerned to ensure that the range of issues that confront separating parents can be dealt with. I hope that the Minister will look favourably upon it.
It is my contention, as I have said several times this afternoon, that if there is back-up support and advice in respect of all the issues that separating parents find themselves dealing with, then it will be easier to accomplish agreement on issues to do with money. The Minister has told us many times that that is the prime and overriding objective of CMEC. That was the reasoning behind the amendments, and I look forward to hearing the comments of other hon. Members.

Paul Rowen: The clause is one of the most significant and important parts of the Bill, because much of what it seeks to do is new. As was seen in the evidence sessions on Tuesday, a range of information and guidance is going to be provided by web-based, telephone and face-to-face methods. I hope that that will go a long way towards ensuring that CMEC gets off to a good start.
The difficulty is that the clause is vague. The amendments, particularly amendment No. 17 and our similar amendment No. 35, would put flesh on the bones of the clause so that it would contain definite information as to who or what will be responsible. As the Minister said, the issues will affect more than just one Department; it is a cross-departmental responsibility, so it is important to make it clear in the Bill that the relevant Departments will have to understand their responsibilities to ensure that whatever range of providers is set up, the people involved will have the information and will know where to go.
One of the things that can bedevil a new law is a lack of cross-departmental support. By setting up a skeleton explanation of how that information and guidance will be produced and who will be responsible for it, we can ensure that CMEC delivers a step change from what has happened with current arrangements through the CSA.

James Plaskitt: I am grateful to hon. Members speaking to the amendments. We had assumed that the purpose of amendments Nos. 75 and 76 was to place a duty on the commission to contract out its information and guidance functions, and that is more or less what we heard. Amendments Nos. 17 and 35 aim to provide the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations for the commission, enabling it to work with other Government Departments in delivering services to separating parents. Amendment No. 17 would provide the commission with powers to pilot those services.

Andrew Selous: I want to clarify something that the Minister said. Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 mean that information and advice could be provided by bodies other than CMEC, but do not prevent CMEC from providing it. It would, as an organisation, be able to ensure that something was happening.

James Plaskitt: I entirely accept that, but the measure pushes the emphasis towards the possibility of the services being provided externally. Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 are unnecessary because clause 5, in conjunction with clause 8, makes it perfectly clear that any function of the commission, including the information and guidance function, may be contracted out. We believe that the function could be delivered successfully through a mix of the private and voluntary sectors, but it is not yet possible to identify who will provide it, because the commissioning process has not yet started. We have already engaged with the voluntary sector and are in the process of undertaking an assessment of the market capacity to deliver an information and guidance service from 2008. We hope that that work will help the commission to make informed decisions about how the information and guidance service be delivered most effectively.
Amendments Nos. 17 and 35 would provide the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations for the commission to work together with other Departments to deliver services for separating parents. Amendment No. 17 would provide the commission with the power to pilot those services. These amendments are also unnecessary because there is no legal barrier to prevent the commission from working with other Departments or public bodies on any pilot or national programme. Indeed, we intend to encourage such working. Clause 7 already provides for the commission to carry out work on behalf of other Departments as well as other public bodies and vice versa.
I wish to underline the importance that we attach to the need to work across narrow departmental areas to support parents more effectively. It is important because research strongly shows that the majority of separating parents have an array of issues to resolve—they are often confused about where they can get the right help and end up relying solely on family and friends because they cannot access more informed support. Issues in those circumstances range from maintenance to housing, debt, contact, domestic violence, benefits and tax credits. Parents frequently need emotional support as well.
In drafting clause 5, we have taken that evidence on board. Members of the Committee will note that subsection (2) allows the commission to provide information on a range of issues wider than the pure issue of maintenance, when those issues emerge as part of an overall discussion with parents. We expect that the commission will use that power to link people to a range of wider organisations that provide more specialist support. We fully expect it to provide a wider range of written and web-based material on separation issues. We have been impressed by the quality of material available to parents through, for example, the Australian system that was mentioned earlier. We will look to the commission, working with the voluntary sector, to provide such material. On a wider front, the Government have clearly signalled the importance that they attach to providing parental support through the creation of the new Department for Children, Schools and Families, which, as we have discussed, has responsibility for leading family policy evolution across Government.
One of the key pieces of work that the Department will be taking forward is “Aiming high for children: supporting families”, by which the Government are committed to improving information for parents. Resources will be made available between 2008 and 2011 to improve the quality and accessibility of information for parents through the “Parent Know-How” campaign, which will offer a range of communication channels, including telephone helplines and websites. We will ensure that the new information and support service is linked to “Parent Know-How”.
Local children’s information services that are run by local authorities will also direct parents to the commission when appropriate, because we want parents seeking help with child maintenance to be directed to the commission quickly when they first seek help on a related matter. If that work were to lead, in due course, to a new and substantial cross-Government initiative, the commission would already have the power to provide support on maintenance issues as part of a pilot, and clause 7 will give the commission the power to deliver that pilot in its entirety if so desired.
In summary, I assure hon. Members that there is already provision in the Bill to deal with the issues addressed by all four amendments, and on that basis I urge them to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Selous: We seem to be getting a recurring pattern, where the Minister has huge sympathy with points being made by Opposition Members and says that he wants to achieve what we want, but it is not there in the detail of the Bill. We are then promised that the regulations are coming.
Clause 5 is a very short clause—two tiny subsections—and has been written with a broad brush. I have a lot of respect for the Minister and am sure that he will keep his word. However, there are 78 pages in the Bill, and it seems to me that there might be a few more things that the Minister is talking about, and, indeed, singing the praises of, that are not down in ink in the Bill. We will obviously have to wait for details on implementation and regulations as we go forward. I am grateful for the tone of what the Minister has said. Although I intend to press amendment No. 17 to a Division, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 8, in clause 5, page 2, line 20, leave out ‘purpose’ and insert ‘purposes’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 6, in clause 5, page 2, line 20, after ‘existence’, insert ‘and renewal’.
No. 33, in clause 5, page 2, line 20, after ‘existence’, insert ‘and continuation’.
No. 7, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert
‘and of securing the collection of any arrears of maintenance which are due’.
No. 5, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert—
‘(1A) Information and guidance provided under subsection (1) must include—
(a) provisional maintenance assessments, consisting of an estimate of the maintenance liable if an application were made to the statutory scheme, to enable parents to establish voluntary maintenance arrangements;
(b) template maintenance agreements, consisting of a pro forma maintenance agreement, to enable establishment of voluntary maintenance arrangements.’.
No. 37, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert—
‘(1A) The Commission must, within one year of the coming into force of this section, publish a report on how it will provide specialised advice and guidance to parents in the following areas—
(a) separation and divorce,
(b) child care,
(c) child maintenance arrangements,
(d) the role of the Commission,
(e) personal finance, and
(f) housing,
both through telephone services and face-to-face services.’.
No. 67, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert—
‘(1A) The Commission must, within one year of the coming into force of this section, publish a strategy for providing information and guidance to parents, including—
(a) how many and what new bodies will be set up or funded by the Commission to provide information and guidance;
(b) which bodies will provide telephone services and which will provide face-to-face services;
(c) the budget for the marketing and promotion of information and guidance sources, broken down by destination;
(d) which bodies or programmes will be co-funded with other Government departments and on what basis;
(e) specific strategies for disseminating information and guidance to parents—
(i) claiming jobseeker’s allowance and income support,
(ii) in employment on means tested benefits,
(iii) not eligible for means tested benefits, and
(iv) low level users of statutory maintenance services, targeted by gender and ethnicity;
(f) specific strategies for disseminating information and guidance in accessible formats to parents with disabilities in compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and the Commission’s Disability Equality Scheme.’.

Andrew Selous: We continue our deliberations on clause 5 with this second group of amendments. Amendment No. 8 would simply make a number of additional purposes part of the clause. Amendment No. 6 would ensure that effective maintenance arrangements could be not only set up, but renewed and taken forward on an ongoing basis throughout the lifetimes of the children concerned. Amendment No. 7 deals with the incredibly important issue of arrears, about which we had a debate this morning, and you will probably prefer us not to go over it again at length, Mr. Chope. I think that the hon. Member for Rochdale and I are at one on the importance of that topic and will continue in Committee and on Report to ensure that that issue does not go beneath the radar, as will our colleagues in another place. For the benefit of members of the Committee, I will not repeat the arguments that I made twice this morning; no doubt, they would not be pleased still to be hearing my voice in an hour’s time.
I commend amendment No. 5, which deals with the information and guidance that is provided, to the Minister as worthy of his favourable consideration. His phrase, contained in clause 2, is “appropriate voluntary maintenance arrangements”. We had a brief debate about that by virtue of an earlier amendment that I tabled on what “appropriate” means. The purpose of amendment No. 5 is to give parents an idea of what they would be getting within the statutory CMEC scheme. They do not have to be bound by that, but there may, for instance, be many vulnerable parents with care—largely women and mothers—who have no idea what they should expect to get. Perhaps they have been in an abusive relationship or one where their partner has been overly dominant and they have been cowed into submission and done what he told them to do, which may be why they want to be shot of him and are separating. Perhaps the man involved will propose a pretty rum deal. Would not it be sensible, from the point of view of these vulnerable women, to give them an idea, saying, “Were you in the statutory CMEC scheme, which the Minister doesn’t want you to get into, this is the proportion of your partner’s, ex-partner’s or husband’s income that you would look to get”?
This is a really practical, sensible idea. I seriously hope that the Minister considers it, if not now, perhaps later. I commend it to him, his team and officials in the Department, because it is practical, sensible and meets the need of vulnerable women who may not have an idea about what they could reasonably and appropriately expect from their husbands. There is no requirement on them to make an arrangement that would mirror exactly what they would get in the scheme. They have the flexibility to match precise arrangements to their situation in terms of timing, in the way that the Minister talked about earlier, or they may leave the agreement on one side when the child goes to stay with the non-resident parent. I accept all that. However, just as a ball park indicator, this provision would be useful. It is practical and I commend it to the Minister and the Committee for their favourable consideration.

Paul Rowen: Again, we are continuing our earlier debate about what information should be provided and how that should be done. I want to talk about amendments Nos. 33, 7, 37 and 67. Amendment No. 33 is similar to amendment No. 6, tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire, in that we are talking not just about the creation of child maintenance arrangements, but about whether the important words “renewal” or “continuation” should be used. Again, it has to be understood that children grow up, their needs change and over that period any arrangements that are set in place will need to change to reflect that. That needs to be reflected in the Bill.
On amendment No. 7, as the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire said, we are concerned about what happens to arrears and we want to ensure that when the new body is set up the commission understands and appreciates that. That is why it was tabled.
As we heard in the discussion on Tuesday, there is interest in what sort of information services CMEC will provide. It was interesting to hear the Ministers talk about how they have gone about doing that. I welcome the involvement of the voluntary sector, because that is a positive way forward.
Like the previous amendment, amendment No. 37 seeks to broaden the measures to include the provision of information and advice, which traditionally has not been provided by the CSA. We are attempting to ensure that all the services that children receive are not delivered in a disjointed, departmental way.
Amendment No. 35 would set out, in a similar way to a service level agreement, the information that a parent using CMEC could expect to get. It comes back to what I said earlier about setting out responsibilities in the Bill and how they will be delivered. We hear talk about child care arrangements, housing and personal finance. The CSA has not necessarily dealt with such things in the past, but if we are to set up an information and guidance arrangement, we need to ensure that we make available that level of provision. It might have been provided by a number of different bodies in the past, but we are trying to put in place a one-stop-shop system, which ensures that a parent who is going through a difficult divorce and dealing with domestic violence gets all the advice to which they have a right.
We are not asking for such steps to be taken right away. We are saying that we must wait until the commission is set up and the commissioners and the staff are in place. We want to see a report that sets out the Department’s strategy to ensure that the available information and guidance are provided equally throughout the country by a range of appropriate providers. We want to know the amount of money, broken down by destination, that will be spent on promoting the information.
We also want to know how that information and advice will be delivered. In the evidence session on Tuesday, we heard that there is still some concern because, in the past, too much of it has been delivered by telephone. We want to ensure that arrangements for face-to-face information provision are in place, because cases often involve vulnerable people who are at a crisis point and who need face-to-face contact with someone who understands their situation and can give broad advice.
We want to see specific strategies in place to ensure that services are available to address a broad range of matters with which the parent might need assistance. Those might include employment, means-tested benefits, jobseekers allowance or issues of gender or ethnicity. With amendment No. 67, we seek to ensure that the commission has a proper strategy to enable the system to deliver not only what the CSA has delivered, but a broader, Government-based agenda, which provides all the information that a parent in such circumstances has the right to expect. I have no doubt that the commission will not do all that alone. It will need to come to arrangements with other Departments and non-governmental bodies. We want to see a clear strategy that sets out how it will be delivered.

James Plaskitt: I thank hon. Members for their amendments. In their entirety, they seek to widen the information and guidance function, or place an additional requirement on the commission to report on certain key aspects of that function within specified time scales. I should like to be as helpful as possible with this group of amendments. In general terms, I believe that they are unnecessary, however, because clause 5 already covers the issues that hon. Members are concerned about and the information and support service that we expect the commission to provide is already being set up to cover such issues.
Before covering the amendments, I remind the Committee that clause 5 places a duty on the commission to provide parents with the necessary information and guidance to help them choose, make and keep effective maintenance arrangements, therefore supporting our overall objectives. The clause will enable the commission to develop new services that provide parents with impartial guidance to help them to make informed choices about financial arrangements for their children. We expect the commission to create specific new services to deliver that function, working with the best private, voluntary and state providers.
We expect the commission to use three main routes to channel the service: a national contact centre, a web-based service and face-to-face support. That will create a service that seeks to engage with the maximum number of separating parents, encourages parents to make an informed choice about their maintenance arrangements and supports parents in acting on that choice. In doing so it will also provide follow-up support at the request of parents to review their existing arrangements, re-establish voluntary agreements or refer people to the statutory maintenance service, if necessary. We particularly want to draw low-income families into the new service and are working with Jobcentre Plus and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enable the commission to reach people who might not actively seek help to secure effective maintenance arrangements.
I will take the amendments in turn. Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 are intended to ensure that the information and guidance function covers both the setting up of effective maintenance arrangements and the collection of arrears under the child maintenance scheme. As we discussed under clause 2, securing ongoing compliance and enforcing previous debt within the statutory scheme is already required under the commission’s objectives and as such the amendment is unnecessary.
I should point out that we would not expect our information and support service to provide detailed technical information about the various ways the statutory scheme can enforce maintenance or negotiate debt settlements. Rather, it would be focused on providing more general information, namely, that if a parent has doubts about an ex-partner’s willingness to pay maintenance, an application to the statutory scheme may be more appropriate.
Amendments Nos. 6 and 33 intend to ensure that the commission provides information and guidance with a view to helping parents establish voluntary arrangements and supporting their continuation or renewal. Clause 5 already enables the commission to provide that level of service. As I mentioned earlier, our policy intention has always been for the commission to provide that level of service.
Amendment No. 5 would require for two particular tools to be provided as part of the information and guidance provided to parents considering voluntary arrangements: a provisional maintenance assessment, and a standard maintenance arrangement form. The amendment is unnecessary because we need the commission to learn from experience and if such tools prove to be unhelpful to parents in practice, we do not want to place a legal obligation on the commission to continue providing them. That said, the evidence that we have at present suggests that they may well be helpful and we are working on the basis that the commission will provide standard maintenance arrangement forms from the outset. We also expect a much larger role for a broad maintenance calculation function to help parents to initiate negotiations on levels of payment and to address potential imbalance of power issues. That would be a widening of the service that we already provide to around 1,000 parents a month through the CSA’s online calculator.
Amendments Nos. 37 and 67 would require the commission to publish reports within 12 months of clause 5 coming into effect detailing a range of issues, such as the organisations it is contracting to provide telephone and face-to-face services, its approach to working with hard-to-reach groups and how it will be provide advice on a range of maintenance and non-maintenance issues. Again, the amendment is unnecessary because the commission, like many non-departmental public bodies, will be obliged to prepare, publish and lay before Parliament an annual report each financial year to allow scrutiny of its activities. That report will cover a range of issues including the commission’s current and future strategic direction. Such a report is bound to cover much of the material that the hon. Members seek to include in the Bill.
In addition, to be helpful, much of the material will be available well before the time scales implied by the amendments. As my earlier comments made clear, we have already started to develop detailed designs for the commission to build on, so that it can deliver the service in late 2008. For example, with regard to the provision of the information and support service and its potential funding, the detail surrounding the amount is commercially sensitive at this time and will not be put in the public domain before inviting potential providers to tender for provision of the service. However, since the service is due to be in place nationally by late 2008, funding levels and successful bidders will be in the public domain well before the date implied by the amendment.
I also made our developing strategy clear for proactively identifying, referring across and supporting parents with care to make maintenance arrangements in order to realise our statutory objectives and maximise the impact of such reforms on the alleviation of child poverty.
In summary, while I do not agree that any of the amendments are necessary, I hope that those who tabled them recognise that we take the subject matter seriously and that we are keen to provide as much detail as possible. The information and support service is a new and critical element of the overall service that the commission will provide, and we place great importance on working with it to get the service right for children and their parents. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire will not press his amendments.

Andrew Selous: There is a danger at this time of the afternoon that the Minister and I will sound like scratched records, because we have been around the block a bit on these issues. I repeat that I am grateful for the assurances that the Minister has given, as far as they go, but many people outside this House would be grateful to have those assurances in writing and in the Bill, so I will press amendments Nos. 5 and 17, as I indicated earlier. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: No. 5, in clause 5, page 2, line 22, at end insert—
‘(1A) Information and guidance provided under subsection (1) must include—
(a) provisional maintenance assessments, consisting of an estimate of the maintenance liable if an application were made to the statutory scheme, to enable parents to establish voluntary maintenance arrangements;
(b) template maintenance agreements, consisting of a pro forma maintenance agreement, to enable establishment of voluntary maintenance arrangements.’.—[Andrew Selous.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: No. 17, in clause 5, page 2, line 24, at end add—
‘(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations make arrangements to allow information and guidance under subsection (1) to be provided in conjunction with other services delivered by any relevant authority to parents and children who are experiencing or who have experienced family breakdown.
(4) In this section “relevant authority” means—
(a) any Minister of the Crown or department of the Government of the United Kingdom;
(b) a public body specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.
(5) Any regulations made under subsection (3) may be made so as to have effect for a specified period not exceeding 24 months.
(6) A pilot scheme may provide that its provisions are to apply only in relation to—
(a) one or more specified areas or localities;
(b) one or more specified classes of person;
(c) persons selected by reference to prescribed criteria, or on a sampling basis.
(7) A pilot scheme may make consequential or transitional provision with respect to the cessation of the scheme on the expiry of the specified period.
(8) A pilot scheme may be replaced by a further pilot scheme making the same or similar provision.’.—[Andrew Selous.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. David.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Four o’clock till Tuesday 24 July at half-past Ten o’clock.